The band was founded by Nicholas Lambert and former member Evan Pharmakis, the guitarists, in December 2004, and recorded their first demo in Lambert’s dorm room. Soon after, they recruited bassist Shawn Marquis, drummer Brandon Davis, and vocalist Joe Bragel. Lead vocalist Muise, who joined the band in 2009, gave a motivational speech at ELHS this past winter, an event orchestrated by EL students who invited him to speak about drug use and suicide prevention.

The band’s most recent album was 2014’s Void.

Overall, the album is very strong, with wonderful lyrics that are really fun to follow along with, even if sometimes Muise’s delivery makes them hard to understand.

Many of the lyrics are very well written. One song in particular seems like it may have more meaning then most people might understand, the song, “Toxic Pretender,” has in my opinion, one of the best beginning verses I’ve heard in a long time:

“My eyes have seen no glory, so I ripped them out today
Cause when was the last time I looked at you without looking away?
You [expletive] disgust me, a legion in my mouth…”

It seems like almost every song has a story behind it like “Toxic Pretender,” where the main character hates the other main person, so this is why this is the beginning of the song. The storytelling elements make Vanna’s songs easy to connect with.

Void and all the other Vanna albums are absolutely spectacular because of the ease in connecting to the deeper meaning in the lyrics. The actual music itself is energetic and heavy, a perfect combination to get the listener pumped up.